Bronx BP Diaz Offers Up Alternative to 'Unacceptable' Taxi Hailing Situation

Acting as a mediator between the city and an irate livery cab industry, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. attempted today to provide some middle ground for negotiations on a plan to bring legal street hails to New York City's outer boroughs. 

In a conference call with reporters, Diaz said the current extremes in the debate -- between the "status quo," which makes it illegal for livery cabs to pick up streets hails (only licensed "yellow" taxis are allowed to pick-up random people on streets throughout the five boroughs, but they operate almost exclusively in Manhattan), and the city's new plan to create a new fleet of street hail-able taxis that could operate in outer boroughs (as well as Manhattan) -- were both "unacceptable."

[In the morning, before Diaz spoke with reporters, livery operators and elected officials rallied on City Hall to protest the current plan, which would add 6,000 new taxis and allow many of them to pick up passengers in all five boroughs.]

Instead, Diaz offered an alternative "framework" for a new plan that might not please everyone, he said, but might lead to a compromise that would please enough people to get passed and have an impact on the industry and customers.

First, in a nod to livery operators, Diaz said he favored the "de-linking" or "de-coupling" of any new outer-borough street hailing taxis with those that operate in Manhattan. Yellow cabs would only be able to pick up passengers in Manhattan (and the airport) and outer borough cabs would only be allowed to pick up passengers in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. He added that penalties should be stiff for those in violation of these boundaries.

The other piece Diaz wanted included in any deal was financing options that could make it affordable to those who drive or own liver cabs to purchase these new medallions, which currently go for around $760,000. That number would price out most of the mom and pop livery operators who might want to buy into the new system. But Diaz said he favored the medallion system because it gives owners an opportunity to maintain wealth.

(Medallions, like homes or fast food franchises, can be sold by their owners. Diaz added that the auctioning off of 1,500 new medallions would be a great way to make money for the city. He did not say how many of those 1,500 medallions, should outer-borough-specific.)

Diaz, who was asked by the mayor's office, despite his contentious history with the Bloomberg administration over Bronx development deals (see: Armory, Kingsbridge), to broker a more palatable and passable deal on outer-borough taxi regulations, called the issue "complicated," but said he thought an agreement could be reached. The state legislature goes on hiatus in two weeks, so any kind of legislation would have to be passed by then.

In a statement, Cira Angeles, a spokeswoman for Livery Base Owners, Inc., one of the many livery cab associations, called the "delinking of borough licenses from yellow cab medallions is an important first step." But, she added, "prohibiting livery drivers from accepting both radio calls and street hails ignores the reality of a system that has served the community well and we cannot support his plan in its current form."